To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe.
That’s the quest facing Kiveton Park who will be attempting to pull off one of the greatest upsets in S&HCSL League Cup history on Thursday night.
The challenge is monumental as the Division One underdogs visit Premier Division giants Swinton Athletic for their quarter-final tie (kick off 6.30pm).
Whilst aware of the almighty task ahead, Kiveton manager Chris Nelson is promising that his side won’t be sitting back against a Swinton side whose last defeat County Senior defeat came in April 2019.
“I’ve never gone out to play damage limitation,” Nelson told Non League Yorkshire.
“We’ve got quite a lot of attacking players who have played a decent standard so they’ll probably relish it. We’re going to give it go and get at them.
“It is about competing.
“Obviously on paper they are the best side (in the league) for the past two years and it is about learning how good we are compared to the best side.
“(If we were to beat Swinton) you could argue and it sounds really cheesy, but you could argue it is our cup final because you think if we can beat them, why can’t we beat anyone else?
“But we’ll have to put in one of our best performances ever if we are to get the win.
“We beat Dodworth the other year when they won Division One and we were the only team to beat them so that’s a stand-out result, but beating a side that hasn’t lost for two years and who are generally seen as the best side in the County Senior it would be seen as massive result.”
Regardless of whether Kiveton make it to the unreachable star of the semi-finals, Nelson’s men have already pulled off one shock so far in their League Cup by finishing runners-up in Group D.
Park were unbeaten again runaway leaders Wombwell Main and they managed to capture second spot ahead of Premier Division outfit Penistone Church reserves.
Nelson is proud of his side’s effort so far and hopes they turn their form into a promotion push next season.
“We talked about being able to compete with teams in the Premier and we showed we can,” he said.
“We drew with Wombwell in the first game. We then lost 2-1 to Penistone, but we showed that we had competed and could match them.
“The next step is obviously going on and beating them and we beat Penistone in the second game and again drew with Wombwell and we went 1-0 up and then 2-1 up.
“The main thing is we have shown that we are good enough to be in the Premier. That’s the main thing I took from it.
“It was about making sure we had something to take into next season.
“We’re seen that we are good enough to win Division One or get promoted from Division One and then go into the Premier Division and know we can hold our own and maybe push into the top half and not be struggling to just stay up.
“I spoke to Terry (Simon) from Wombwell and he said we were more than good enough to be in the Premier which is what you what to hear.”